I had been to Isle of Wight to celebrate a love anniversary. The island welcomed us with a fantastic weather throughput our stay, beautiful beaches, multicoloured sand, picturesque villages, warm people and mouth watering English food. Most of all it taught us a lesson - a lesson on love.

Our hotel room had a balcony overlooking the beach with two chairs. We sat there for hours chatting, sometimes boozing, sometimes reminiscing the past years, sometimes passed comments at the 'bikini (not-so-)babes', even did some star counting!

We discovered this pleasure of 'balcony hang out' the first day we reached there and were too tired to go out. We saw a vehicle parked by the road next to the beach. An old man came out, opened its back, took out two wooden planks, which seemed quite heavy for him. We looked at wonder - what was he up to?

We saw an old lady in the front seat but she didn't get down... She didn't even lend him a helping hand. We got so curious as to what was going on that we could not look at anything else.

Soon he pulled out something that looked like a thick log or a stick and kept it at the side. He took out a bag which seemed like a nice 'picnic bag'. He then positioned the planks parallel to each other, one end on the car, one end touching the ground.
Then he pulled out a wheelchair for which the planks acted as a base.

It dawned upon us. The wheel chair was for the lady sitting in the front, must be his wife. He opened the front door, positioned the wheel chair close to it, extended the stick to her so that she can hold for support, and she quickly made a turn and jumped into the wheelchair. He then put those heavy planks and the stick back inside, picked up the 'goodies bag', locked the doors (he had to repeat all that to get her back in as well). In the meanwhile the old lady had already started to scoot happily in her automatic wheelchair. And a pair of tired legs and a pair of dusty wheels strolled together on the pavement built next to the beach as the sun started to drown in the clear blue sea.



What a zest for life, what romance! I have seen couples take care of each other's every basic need leaving no stone unturned, but this is a mile further. Going to the beach is not any need, it is pure fun. Especially going every evening is luxury I say! Yes, they were regulars there. It is not just 'cooking cleaning, putting food on the table, help kids with homework, give medicines on time' stuff, it is 'let's go out and have the most fun this age can offer' stuff. I was thoroughly impressed!

The old man had to go through a lot in arranging for his wife to get out of the vehicle and get back in again, but while clicking these pictures, all I thought of was 'It is indeed a blessing to love and be loved'...